


Pioneer

by LazyKitty



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, YOI Space Week, nebulae, nonhuman beings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 04:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13803417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyKitty/pseuds/LazyKitty
Summary: Day 1 of YOI Space week: Nebulae promptSomeday, when all of his roots have been nurtured and freed, he will leave Garden behind and float out into the unknown. As long as Yuuri can remember, he’s been dreaming of what could be out there swirling amidst the unborn stars.





	Pioneer

**Author's Note:**

> I was really interested in the YOI Space Week event (Feb. 25-Mar. 3) put on by yoistargazers on Tumblr. I'm not sure if I will have the time to finish up the whole week, but I was especially inspired by Day 1's prompt when I first read it. This is the most open and different thing I've written, and it was super fun. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> (Day 1) nebulae - vague, conceptual, dreamlike. full of potential and what might be, swirling with the hopes and dreams of stars yet to be born.

Everyone leaves Garden eventually.

Yuuri still has a lot of time until it’s his turn; his roots are still many and stretch well beneath the glittering top layer of dust. But each day, another loosens and pushes its way to the surface. It becomes thread-thin and soft as silk in the atmosphere, and, after the first kiss of the nearest sun, each becomes near translucent. He has enough now that they chime against each other creating music. 

Someday, when all of his roots have been nurtured and freed, he will leave Garden behind and float out into the unknown. As long as Yuuri can remember, he’s been dreaming of what could be out there swirling amidst the unborn stars. All the vastness of space was theirs to explore someday, and yet…his kin seem to cluster in one particular area of space, packed so densely that they shine like their own star mass, clearly visible when their small sun passes under the horizon. 

‘Why?’ Yuuri has always wondered. ‘With so much black to fill, why do we all flock there and all look the same?’

‘We are a colony.’ Mari is always the first to answer his thoughts - their first roots sprouted from the same Origin, though Mari has several more freed threads than Yuuri does. He will miss her when her last roots release.

‘But is it not true that you can propel yourself when your roots first loosen? That you can aim yourself in the sky?’ he always challenges.

‘We are not pioneers’ is what his other kin say. 

But perhaps there had once been a pioneer among them. Yuuri noticed it many rotations ago, just after his eighth root sprung free. Twelve roots later, and he still studies those flickering golden pink threads at length while his kin rest. He thinks - no, he knows - that nothing in the whole universe is capable of dancing quite so beautifully as his lone kin. Yuuri’s own attempts to replicate the movements were rarely successful in tight woven corners of Garden. His threads tangle with the others around his and he feels clumsy and restricted in his movements. 

Yet, he keeps trying. It gets easier over time, as Garden’s surface thins.

His lone kin seems to repeat the same pattern, sometimes for weeks at a time, before changing it up. Yuuri does the same with his own dancing. He pretends his kin is speaking to him and that he is answering; it’s probably not true, but it gives him something to focus on other than his loosening roots. 

On the rotation that Mari leaves, Yuuri concentrates and sprouts silver petals from his threads. They are silver and resonate at a faster frequency than their Origin. The others whisper that they have never seen such a thing before, that it’s impossible to shape one’s freed threads. Yuuri knows it’s not - he’s seen the lone kin, his Pioneer, do it many times. Yuuri ignores them and keeps vigil over Mari’s departure that evening, watching in stillness as she floats off along the same path as the others. Soon, he won’t be able to pick her out.

Yuuko and Takeshi are next. They braid some of their threads together as a final assurance that they won’t be separated during the journey. Yuuko’s last root caresses Yuuri’s as she lifts into space, and it feels like goodbye. Perhaps she has noticed the way he has been angling himself towards Pioneer, more and more each time he feels his final root growing looser and looser. She doesn’t want him to be alone. The darkness is unknown. They are a colony, they should stay together.

But Pioneer is different. 

Yuuri is different. 

It’s true that he doesn’t want to be alone. What if Pioneer doesn’t want to be alone, either?

Yuuri’s dances for the next few rotations are sad and unsure. He feels scared in the face of his liberation. And then, just as he weeps his threads over the barren soils once occupied by his friends, he feels it. It’s something warm and makes his soul tingle and pulse. It makes him feel like something out there is calling to him, that something out there is waiting for him. When he looks to the dark corner of the sky, he sees Pioneer dancing, reaching almost. 

When his time comes, Yuuri doesn’t fight to hold his final root. He floats up or down perhaps, it’s unclear and all a matter of perspective. The sound of bells and singing of his kin eventually fade into nothing. There is no sound during his travels toward the light, his Pioneer, but he projects anyway: ‘I’m coming' he says. 

At this, Pioneer’s light pulses golden warmth as it dances. ‘Stay with me.’

Whatever happens next, they will face together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
